


Flashing Lights

by GalekhXigisi



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, F/M, Healing, I Die By My Own Sword, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, Multi, Rape, Rape/Non-con Elements, Trans Male Richie Tozier, Trans Richie Tozier, it gets better tho, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 00:09:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20629823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalekhXigisi/pseuds/GalekhXigisi
Summary: Beverly suspects some undertones she wishes she hadn't. Now, her and the rest of her boyfriends are going to help Richie heal, even if it takes forever. They have nothing but time on their hands.





	1. Chapter 1

Beverly frowns as her eyes run over Richies’ form. She hates what she sees. She doesn’t envy Richie, no, no, she could never envy or dislike him. She could certainly get annoyed with him, as their entire friend group did so often that the threat of breakups were actually rather common, not that any of them would actually go through with it. They loved each other and they’d be damned if they took the final step into breaking up. However, they had become so uncommon that Beverly couldn’t help but worry. She always worried about Richie, sure, but that was because she always worried about her lovers. That was just what she did. She was the mother of the group, as Richie had once called her. 

This was a new type of worry that made her stomach stir. She recognized his actions. She knew them. She had seen them on herself when she was still with her father, far before her aunt came and took custody of her niece because Beverly had called her sobbing from behind the door of the bathroom while her father yelled in the other room, yelled about things she had never heard before and what he was going to do to her if she didn’t come out. Thank fuck her aunt only lived just an hour away. 

He cowers when arms are raised. That was never exactly the newest, no, because Richies’ mother used to be the cruelest woman until her husband finally set her straight because  _ That's our fucking son, Maggie! Look at him! Look! He’s crying because you hurt him! He’s bleeding because you fucking hurt him! _ He hadn’t even known about what went through that home until Richie was eleven and Wentworth came home early and found his wife beating his son with a shattered wine bottle, screaming that she wanted her daughter back while Richie sat silent and took her abuse without any sort of fight in him. Wentworth was sure to let her know he wouldn’t tolerate that shit anymore and the threat of divorce came up for two years before Maggie finally accepted it. 

The Losers hadn’t even known that until two months dating when Richie confessed during the heat of the moment because Mike had asked why there was a large scar on the side of his neck. The teenagers had all instantly stopped their makeout session when tears began pouring from Richies’ face. They hadn’t ever seen him cry until then. He confessed about his mothers’ abusive tendencies and the sex organ between his legs that only Stan knew about because they had been friends since Richie first moved into Derry. 

He doesn’t talk that much anymore. His voice had never exactly been the deepest, but colic seemed to aid in him passing. He wasn’t any sort of deep-voiced radio announcer like he feigned as a joke, but he was certainly deeper than Beverly or any of the girls in their school. When he does talk, his voice breaks beneath his words, now stumbled out and corrected again and again by the boy. It’s pitiful how rough his voice had become on him. It was almost as if he hated his own voice now, not that he exactly loved it in the first place. 

Richie doesn’t cuddle them anymore. He doesn’t lay with them in the pile of limbs and blankets beneath the heat of another summer that burns at their skin because it’s too hot but damn if they don’t want to lay with each other, the fan focused on them. It was a mixture of sweat and bodies and fabrics that none of them exactly seemed to mind. Well, no one outside of Richie, who slept on the couch instead of the floor, held in a too-large shirt and flowy pajama pants that hung loosely around his hips. They were always rather confused as to how in the actual  _ fuck _ he could wear that in the middle of summer, but the teenager never had a singular issue with it, just somehow living through it. That wasn’t how things used to be. He used to initiate their piles and he would be the most vocal and physical of them all, constantly displaying his affection for the Losers to all see without hesitation. 

She knows he can’t deal with touch near his hips. It makes her worry more than anything else. She had never  _ actually _ been touched like that by anyone she didn’t want to be. Even her creep of a father never went that far, no matter how fucking weird or nasty he was. But there were moments when Richies’ shirt would ride up and there would be bruises shaped like handprints and fingerprints or cuts from something too sharp that looked too deep. They didn’t look self-inflicted, either. Bev once thought she had seen the letter H carved into his stomach, but she never asked, never got to pry. She didn’t want to think about it, either. The consideration always made her feel sick to her stomach. 

There were a million different things that could be going on with Richie, she knows, but she has a prying suspicion it has to do with why Henry Bowers hasn’t come after them once since he’s gotten out of juvie. He doesn’t attack them anymore, not at all. In fact, since he had stopped, almost the entire school had stopped outside of the occasional remark that always came with being a highschooler, the soon-to-be juniors knowing that this year would be just as bitch of a year as the rest, but maybe less so since no one had  _ actually _ attacked them this summer. That was the most uncommon occurrence the entire summer, and probably one of the most worrisome.

He could be getting sexually abused, which was something that made her mind muddle. She hated the undertones her father always gave. She hated the way he would grope her or would make snide, creepy comments with the disgusting implications that she knew far too much for her own good. For a while, she didn’t even know things could be different, that this wasn’t normal for a husband to do after his wife’s death, and even the same if the roles got reversed. 

Beverly wasn’t sure about physically abused. Obviously, he  _ was _ being physically abused. Bev knew Richie hated blood. He hated it. He could tolerate it, stare at it for hours on end, but there was no possible way he could ever be into it or anything of that sort. He would sob when his “monthly” came around  _ (it wasn’t monthly, she knew he had to take a medication for it every few months to prevent cancer or anything of that sort, he had explained that in fine detail to them when Eddie had once asked why he disappeared for an entire four months when they were fourteen, just last year). _ She knew he would complain about the blood, that he despised it and it made his stomach curl in disgust. He could tolerate any other versions of blood just fine, but his own just made him sick. 

Beverly knew he hated bruises, too. He hated handprints and bruises and anything that hinted at an ache. He would always try to cover them up. Sometimes it was with makeup he mixed with white paint  _ (“They just never have my skin tone, Bev.”) _ and press it to his skin. Other times, he would do one of the many ways he had found to get rid of bruises within days. She never knew how he found them out, nor did she ever want to ask. She just knew that he knew. It always crept up on her, even before they were dating, that Richie knew what to do. He knew what to do when she had a bruise on her neck and hadn’t hesitated to take her in and fix it. Bev was beyond just worried when he presented aloe vera, ice, and a few other things that ended up getting rid of the bruises in one day flat. Ever since that shit day, it almost always found a way to burrow into her after midnight thoughts. 

She doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know how to help, but she wants to. She wants to save her friend-boyfriend-lover-loser-whatever from whatever the fuck is going on. 


	2. Chapter 2

The entire world feels like it’s tilted when Richie leaves the bunker-like clubhouse. He can’t explain it, really. It just feels like something was off. It felt like that disgusting feeling that always came right before a storm, the uncomfortable sticky in the room that made everyone stir, wanting the humidity to simply leave. It left his palms sweating with worry, but he didn’t exactly care that much. He had to pee and didn’t exactly want to pee in front of his lovers, no offense to them, but that just wasn’t his style. He wasn’t like the rest of the boys, who went off to pee together, whether it be because of safety in numbers or simply because they had just made it a habit. He wasn’t like Beverly, who always had at least one person go with her because  _ I’m fucking squatting, it’s a vulnerable position. _ He has a feeling it has something to do with her encounter with Pennywise, but he never blabbed about that. He totally  _ doesn’t _ throw up at least once from his nerves. Nope, that wasn’t like him at all. 

When he gets back, he frowns. Everyone was sitting in a circle, staring at him as he walked down the ladder. It felt  _ weird, _ like lions stalking their prey, ready to attack within an instant’s notice. It made his stomach stir, made it feel disgusting. 

_ I know your secret, your dirty little secret. _

He steps down, frowning. “What? Do I have something on my face?” 

Eddie seems to freeze up, his entire body stilled. 

“Do I? Am I bleeding?” 

Beverly seems to jerk forward, calling out a loud,  _ “No!” _ It makes the boy jump at the words, at the  _ noise. _ He has to force a shaky breath down. “Sorry,” Bev apologizes quickly, her voice half-heartedly panicked. “I didn’t mean to yell, but-” 

“S’okay,” he mumbles, frowning. “What’s going on?...” 

“Sort of like an intervention,” Mike tries, frowning. “We, uh…” 

Stan attempts to take the reigns. “I didn’t- We just… We think that  _ maybe… _ ” 

“Maybe something like what was going on with me and my dad is going on with you,” Bev tries, looking away. Her eyes focus on a leaf. 

Richie raises a brow. What the  _ fuck _ does she mean? There are a million different things she could mean, but he doesn’t like a single one. “What the fuck do you mean, Bev?” 

“The bruises,” she takes up, “the ones that are all over you… And the fact that there’s the letter H carved on your stomach and Henry hasn’t gone after us  _ once _ since you started pulling away from us.” 

Richie freezes.  _ Oh. _ Oh, they meant  _ that. _ It feels like he’s been punched in the gut. Hell, maybe he  _ was _ punched in the gut. It might’ve felt better than the sudden urge to vomit, but he’s already vomited all the contents in his stomach. There’s nothing left but acid that hurts a million ways to Hell. Was he that bad at covering the aches and pains that invaded him? He seemed to keep the secret that he was trans down until Bowers found out. 

Thankfully, Stan holds out a bag for Richie as the teenager vomits into the plastic bag. It’s nothing more than stomach acid and spit, but it's still vomit all the same. It’s gross and leaves a disgusting taste in his mouth. 

“Richie,” Stan murmurs softly as he sits with his lover, “it’s okay.” 

“Shut up,” Richie bites out as he vomits again. It’s not okay. They at least had some sort of  _ hint _ at what was going on. “I’m keeping you shitheads safe, that’s what matters.” 

“A - A - At what len - lengths,” Bill asks, brows knit. 

“None of your business.” 

“It’s our business when it’s affecting our relationship,” Bev replies for him. 

Richie pauses. 

It was? Since when? Was he really  _ that bad _ at hiding it? At hiding just  _ anything? _

Stan holds the bag wider when Richie vomits again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not happy with this story so I'm only gonna write a few chapters.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments! I take constructive criticism!
> 
> Please join my Discord server!  
https://discord.gg/eGkwayy


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